• Tag Archives Obama

  • The Real Meaning of President Obama’s National Security Speeches

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The president will continue and even expand drone attacks overseas because they are “less deadly” than ground invasions. He promises to be more careful in the future.

    He is entertaining the introduction of “kill courts” which will meet in secret to decide who is to be executed without trial or charge. He promises these will have sufficient oversight.

    He will seek a new and updated Authorization for the Use of Military Force to expand his legal authority to wage war wherever and whenever he wants. He promises it will one day be repealed.

    He will continue to indefinitely detain at Guantanamo individuals who have been neither charged nor convicted of any crime, and who cannot even be tried because they were tortured and thus the evidence is tainted. He promises to “commit to a process of closing GTMO.”

    The speech speaks of more war and more killing and more interventionism all masked in the language of withdrawal.

    via The Real Meaning of President Obama’s National Security Speeches


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  • Holder OK’d search warrant for Fox News reporter’s private emails, official says

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.

    The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists.

    “I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable,” Obama said. “Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs.”

    Rosen, who has not been charged in the case, was nonetheless the target of a search warrant that enabled Justice Department investigators to secretly seize his private emails after an FBI agent said he had “asked, solicited and encouraged … (a source) to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information.”

    Obama’s comments follow a firestorm of criticism that has erupted over disclosures that in separate investigations of leaks of classified information, the Justice Department had obtained private emails that Rosen exchanged with a source and the phone records of Associated Press reporters.

    Full article: http://openchannel.n … emails-official-says


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  • Eric Holder Drones: Leaked Memo Reveals Drones Killed Four Americans

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    A day before President Obama is to give a speech outlining the justifications used in targeted drone strikes, the New York Times has received a copy of a Justice Department white paper acknowledging the deaths of four Americans in drone strikes. The letter from Attorney General Eric Holder to congressmen including Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is the first acknowledgment by the government of strikes against Americans, including Anwar Al-Awlaki, “outside of areas of active hostilities.”

    Full article: http://www.policymic … illed-four-americans


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